


descendant of the sun

by whitenoisce



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Donghyuck is Apollo's Grandchild, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT) Being an Idiot, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, there is no plot guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25202248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitenoisce/pseuds/whitenoisce
Summary: An honor, she says. To be born under the protection of the sun. But to Donghyuck it only looked like his grandma didn’t practice safe sex with a god in the 50’s and now he has to deal with inconvenient powers in a world that no longer believed in gods.orThe five times Donghyuck tried to let Mark know that he was a descendant of the sun, and the one time he finally gets it.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 49
Kudos: 519





	descendant of the sun

**Author's Note:**

> read a book on achilles x patroclus recently and suddenly i'm back to my camp half-blood roots  
> for the sake of this fic we will pretend helios does not exist and the sun is ruled by apollo lesgeddit

1\. 

It’s not like Donghyuck was stupid or anything. He knew he was more or less fucked the moment his mom sat him down by the ancient tangerine tree in their backyard when he was 12. 

He was about to finish packing for Seoul when she called him out back and made Donghyuck kneel on the soft grass. Without so much as a word, she placed a crown of flowers on his head then proceeded to dampen the soil around him with honeyed wine. 

An honor, she says. To be born under the protection of the sun. But to Donghyuck it only looked like his grandma didn’t practice safe sex with a god in the 50’s and now he has to deal with inconvenient powers in a world that no longer believed in gods. 

Donghyuck feels a headache coming on at the memory, and finds himself plopping onto his bed for some semblance of comfort. 

You'd think it'd be difficult to hide one's secret identity in a dorm full of members, but it actually isn't. These days no one bats an eyelash when something borderline demonic happens over the kitchen stove, and with the kind of weird shit Jungwoo gets up to in his room, even Donghyuck's divine origin story seems pretty tame. 

Suffice to say, no one really suspects him of anything, but now that he and Mark were officially together, it no longer feels right to keep it a secret. 

For a while he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t a big deal, that he doesn’t have to tell Mark that he was one of Apollo’s many grandchildren. (—And it really wasn’t! What's the fuss about anyway?) But sometimes, Donghyuck still scares the living daylights out of himself when he wakes up with hair too yellow when he was sure he had slept with black. 

And moments like these ground him with the realization that he really needs to come clean before the universe decides to flip the table and fuck it up for him. 

Just because there were no wars to fight or prophecies to fulfill, doesn’t mean the gods can no longer have their little fun from where they sit up high. And Donghyuck knows for a fact that he’s lost a lot of brownie points with how frequently he curses them in his head per day. 

Donghyuck tosses and turns in his bed, trying to figure out the best way to tell Mark. 

Does he start with a story? The Greeks have a lot of those, but not a lot of them are particularly happy. He thinks to maybe link him to some Greek god personality quiz off of Buzzfeed instead for something a little more low commitment, but he’s almost certain Mark will take it too seriously and the whole point will fly over his head. 

Donghyuck screams into his pillow, wanting to be swallowed by the bedsheets in his frustration. The bed dips, and for a second Donghyuck thinks this is it. The gods have finally heard his pleas and were finally bringing him down to the Underworld. But no. He looks up from his pillow only to see Mark seated on the side of the bed, staring down at him with a fond smile. 

“Ugh. It’s you,” Donghyuck spits in disappointment. As much disappointment as he can muster at seeing the love of his life anyway. 

“Unfortunately.” Mark relents with a chuckle, unfazed by Donghyuck’s dramatics. “Anything the matter?” 

Donghyuck decides at this very moment to end his misery here and now. Mark literally asked him if anything was the matter, and you know what? Something is quite the matter, thank you very much. 

“Mark, I have something important to tell you,” says Donghyuck, eyes dead serious as he stares into the older’s soul. (He doesn’t actually, that’s Psyche’s job.) 

“What is it?” 

“I’m part god,” Donghyuck says, holding his breath right after as he surveys the slopes and dips of Mark’s face for any reaction. 

The older blinks at him once, twice, then again before a smile breaks out across his face and he leans himself forward. 

“Of course you are, baby.” Mark says as he plants a kiss onto Donghyuck’s lips, eyes crinkling in devotion. “You’re _fucking_ phenomenal.” 

With a ruffle of his hair, Mark stands back up to head out the door while Donghyuck remains gaping on the bed like a fish out of water. 

He didn’t know what just happened, but if he were to take a wild guess, it means his misery only starts here. 

2.

Donghyuck, gods bless his heart, doesn’t actually believe that Mark is as brainless as his actions make him out to be. 

I mean, sure. He literally just told his boyfriend in the most direct way possible that he was a godling. But considering Donghyuck’s reputation in both gags _and_ vanity, even he can’t blame Mark for laughing him off. 

And besides, he can’t say he didn’t think his mom was high on wild mushrooms when she first told him as well. It took more than two bottles of honeyed wine and a couple of hours of kneeling on the grass until his knees made knobby indents on the soil before he successfully wrapped his head around the idea. And even then…

Donghyuck clicks his tongue in frustration as he paces around, brain overheating in the heat of the room. It’s been a whole month since he tried to tell Mark, and with the comeback looming near, he knows he won’t get a chance to get him alone if he doesn’t make a move now. 

He decides to start with something easy. One of the first things Donghyuck mastered as a child was the mist. 

The godly lineage that runs through his veins has been diluted with way too many parts mortal blood and Sprite, so he really can’t change his appearance as well as his mom can. But at the very least, he could play with the color of his hair. Though he doesn’t have all the colors, having the shades between his natural blond and black is still pretty cool.

It’s pretty useless, but just crazy enough a skill for Mark to take him seriously if he does it right. And with that, Donghyuck makes up his mind and heads out in search of the boy. 

He finds Mark in the kitchen rummaging through the contents of the dorm fridge, no doubt looking for something cold and fruity to combat the heat. Donghyuck makes sure to make his presence known with loud steps, just so he can’t chicken out and run back into his room. 

“Hey babe,” Mark mutters as he continues to survey the freezer. He didn’t even spare Donghyuck a glance. “Why is it so damn hot?” 

“I dunno. The sun, maybe. Or science. I don’t really care.” Donghyuck shrugs before turning Mark to face him, the older’s shoulders cold from having stood in front of the fridge for so long. “But hey, check this out!”

He closes his eyes to concentrate, and for a hot second nothing happens. He hears Mark begin to ask him what he’s supposed to be seeing but a tingling starts at his scalp and he just knows his hair is changing from black to a strawberry blonde, just the way he’s feeling it today. 

He opens his eyes to see a wide-eyed Mark, and Donghyuck can’t help the bubbly laughter that escapes his throat. 

“Cool, huh?” He doesn’t need Mark to reply to know that it is pretty fucking cool, thank you very much. 

“Oh my god, Hyuckie.” Mark squeaks, fingers lifting themselves to comb through Donghyuck’s hair. “I didn’t know the dye was so sensitive! That was so fast!” 

“What?” Donghyuck blurts out, confused out of his mind. “What are you on about?” 

“One of the stylist noonas told me last week they wanted to try thermal overlays for the next comeback, but they said you’d have to iron it for it to work. But you literally just had to stand in front of the freezer! At this rate, you’d be able to change hair colors in the middle of the stage. That’s so cool!” 

Donghyuck just stands there as Mark continues to card through his hair, excitedly checking to see if it was patchy anywhere. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to be patchy. Because it’s not a fucking dye job!!

He wants to say as much, but Mark beats him to the punch. 

“Can it turn red?” 

In his stunned stupor, Donghyuck feels his head shake dumbly in response to Mark’s question. Before this, he was confident that he had prepared for every single possible scenario that might come out of this revelation. But he should have expected the gods to throw him a curveball in the form of Mark Lee, dumbass extraordinaire.

“ _Ah._ ” Mark says, “Of course. I guess science can’t do everything, huh?” 

Mark finally closes the fridge door after pulling out a cup of pudding from the back. The gust of wind makes Donghyuck wince as he watches Mark rip the packaging with his teeth. 

“Want some?” Mark politely offers. It takes all of Donghyuck’s willpower not to flip the pudding off his hands and stalk off to the ends of the earth. Instead he just closes his mouth, and lets out a questionable sound of dissent. 

“Suit yourself,” Mark shrugs before he’s walking back into his room, leaving Donghyuck standing alone in the middle of the kitchen. 

Did he just get roasted by his mortal boyfriend?

3.

The next time Donghyuck gets the chance to come clean is three months later, and completely accidental. 

He was practicing some choreography for end-of-year activities with some of the members, and “it just so happened” that he slips on nothing and ends up twisting his leg in the process. 

The music stops and the members rush to him in panic, Johnny doing the honors of calling for their manager. They ask him where it hurts and Donghyuck can’t find the words to tell them that it doesn’t. It doesn’t hurt at all. 

Beneath him, his right leg somehow managed to pretzel itself in an ungodly fashion. Which is funny when you think about it, because ungodliness is a really weird way of saying that the gods _definitely_ had something to do with it. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, groaning at his own stupidity. He knew he should _not_ have thrown away the old laurel wreaths he found at the bottom of his storage box last week. Now he’ll be forced to sit the rest of the year out, or even longer if he doesn’t manage to appease his grandfather. 

Taeyong takes his grimace as a sign of pain, and panics even more. Somewhere in the background, Jungwoo starts to chant in a language he doesn’t understand. 

The diagnosis comes out as a simple fracture of the tibia, and he’ll be needing bed rest for at least three months before he can start dancing again. Donghyuck doesn’t listen to any of it and reassures the manager that he doesn’t need to cancel anything past December. They only look at him like he’s crazy and proceeds to rearrange his schedule anyways. 

Sometime later his mom rings him up only to scream at him from all the way in Jeju. Word gets around fast when you pissed off a deity, but news travels even faster if you’re Haechan of NCT. 

She makes him promise to apologize to his grandfather as soon as he can, and it’s in the middle of this conversation that Mark enters the hospital room bringing gifts and food from the members. 

“Yea mom.” Donghyuck says as he shoots a tired smile at Mark who’s taken to silently arranging their dinner. The unmistakable smell of the kimchi stew permeates the air and it makes Donghyuck really want to drop this phone call, stat. “I’ll apologize to him. Do you want me to slay a boar too? Sacrifice a virgin? Something like that?” 

Next to him, Mark snickers and a part of Donghyuck wonders if he’s finally pieced it together. That the god of medicine and the plague (among many other things) got pissed at his ungrateful grandchild and cursed him with invalidity until he begs for forgiveness. But Donghyuck should have known better, he’s dealing with Mark Lee after all. 

“Was that mom?” Mark asks when Donghyuck drops the call. The younger tries to ignore the heat that creeps up his cheeks at how domestic it all sounds. 

Mark and family. Family and Mark. It’s the same thing. Donghyuck wonders if he’d still be willing to come into the fold if he knew he’d be marrying into some weird blood. 

“Yeah, she’s pretty pissed. She says I need to kill some cows for grandpa. At least 12 if I want this gone by New Years’.” 

Donghyuck knows how odd it sounds. He was never a big fan of the whole hecatomb rites himself. There’s absolutely no good reason to go around killing cattle just to appease some god, and not only is it a little barbaric, but there’s almost always way too many leftovers once the sacrifice was done. It’s just not worth it. 

“Uh huh..” Mark raises an eyebrow in question. “Traditional medicine has come a long way since the mortar and pestle, huh?” 

“Oh my god, Canada.” Donghyuck wants to break his other leg in frustration. “Do you want me to offer you up instead?!” 

The older boy can’t help but look affronted at Donghyuck’s outburst. “The hell did I do? I’m so nice to you! Look I even went to MuBank to get you jjigae!” 

Donghyuck deflates like a balloon on the tough hospital bed with a sigh. He’s invested too much into this game to give up too quickly, but he’s getting really impatient. 

“Okay _Mark_ ,” he says, tongue curling around the r the way he does when he means business. “I need you to think really _really_ hard.” 

Mark just stares at him expectantly. Donghyuck braces himself. 

“My name is Full Sun. I sing well after I wake up. I can play any instrument by ear and my skin glows in the sun. My hair goes blond on command, and right now, I need to offer 12 cows as sacrifice to my grandfather who got pissed and cursed me with a broken leg,” Donghyuck says in one breath. “Now, who could my grandfather be?” 

“Uh..” Mark fidgets in his seat. “Is he a butcher?” 

Donghyuck was _so_ going to slaughter Mark Lee. 

4.

Waking comes to Donghyuck in the form of an explosion. 

He’s disoriented and tired, but his body sits up in panic that he might have overslept and missed a schedule. His eyes dart around the room, and it takes him approximately four seconds to realize it’s an off day and he has nowhere to be. 

He lets out a sigh of relief and tries to snuggle back under the covers, but suddenly there are ear-splitting shouts from the living room and Donghyuck becomes acutely aware of exactly what woke him up that morning. 

With a grumble, Donghyuck throws off the covers and staggers his way out the room. His eyes are barely open, but he figures he can no longer go back to sleep. There’s way too much excitement happening on the other side of the door, and he’d be damned if he doesn’t find out what’s gotten the boys so excited so early.

The first thing he sees with his sleep crusted eyes is Mark. 

_Of course._ It’s the kind of sappy thing you think you only see in movies, but then you get together with your bandmate after years of pining and suddenly everything is fucking pink. Donghyuck wishes it weren’t true, but it is. No matter where they are or who they’re with, his eyes would find Mark first, always. 

Donghyuck could have probably spent the rest of the morning waxing poetic about his boyfriend, but something sharp is suddenly whirring itself out of Mark’s hands and the next thing he knows he’s taking cover with an undignified squeak. 

When he finally opens his eyes, the rest of the scene reveals itself to him like a prophecy. 

Hung from behind the door is a dartboard and an entire five inches outside of it, is the dart that Mark just threw. Jungwoo, Doyoung, and Johnny all sit on the couch in stunned silence. 

“You’re horrible at this.” 

Four heads simultaneously whip to where Donghyuck sat on the floor, and only then does he realize that he must’ve blurted his thoughts out loud. Mark’s brows furrow and he pouts. Donghyuck thinks he looks cute the way babies do when they can’t sneeze.

“He’s not wrong,” says Doyoung. Next to him, Johnny snickers and stands to retrieve the dart from the hole on the door.

“I have to be honest, Mark. I didn’t know you could get any worse at this.” 

“How are you supposed to represent us in archery? Archery, Mark. Not the Hunger Games. You might actually kill someone.” 

“Oh my god, dude! I swear I’m much better with a real bow than these stupid darts!” 

“Isn’t this your idea?” 

Donghyuck makes his way to the couch amid the chaos, eyeing the box of darts on the coffee table. He’s always had pretty good aim as a child, but he’d be lying if he said he got it through practice. 

Having Apollo’s blood run through your veins almost always guarantees victory in battles of precision and accuracy. No one else could compare except maybe the descendants of his grandaunt, but last he heard Artemis swore off the hoe life forever. 

He picks up a dart, testing the weight in his hands. He’s never played with darts before, but how hard can it be? 

The boys are still bickering when he takes his stance, but when the dart lands smack in the red circle in the middle they’ve all somehow managed to shut up. 

“ _What._ ” Doyoung blurts out, voice completely flat in shock. Both Johnny and Mark just stare at him while Jungwoo’s lips twitch into a private smile. 

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything and just picks up another dart. He doesn’t make a spectacle out of it and just flicks his wrist, effortlessly landing another one on the bull’s eye. 

He hums in satisfaction. This is pretty fun. 

“Hyuck.” Donghyuck turns to look at Mark who somehow has the gall to look betrayed. “You haven’t thrown a single dart in your life.” 

“He _literally_ just threw two.” Doyoung buries his head in his hands, groaning. “Oh my god he can’t even count.” 

“Why don’t we take a break and reassemble in like...ten minutes. Or never,” says Johnny, standing up. “That sounds good too. Coffee, anyone?”

“No, this is way too fun!” Jungwoo says, eyes twinkling in mischief and excitement. “I bet Haechan can aim better than you with his eyes closed.” 

Donghyuck’s eyes dart between Jungwoo and Mark as unease settles at the pit of his stomach. It’s true he’s having a lot of fun, but he doesn’t want it to be at the expense of Mark’s poor ego. Whatever’s left of it anyway. 

Before Donghyuck could excuse himself, Johnny is settling back down onto the couch with a huff. “Fine, let’s see it then. If we’re going to plaster that hole on the door we might as well make it worth it.” 

He just stands there, unmoving. But Jungwoo isn’t having any of it and is quick to hand him a bunch of darts. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._ Five to be exact. 

They all look at him expectantly, including Mark whose curiosity burns brighter than anyone else in the room. 

He wants to throw them all wrong, but for once Donghyuck isn’t sure it’s something he’s capable of doing. At this rate it takes more skill to get the answers wrong to questions you know like the back of your hand. 

He supposes the faster he does it, the faster he can escape this sticky situation. So with a sigh, he closes his eyes and straightens his back. Somewhere in the background, Jungwoo claps his hands in excitement, and his applause only grows when Donghyuck lands the first one on the target. 

The rest of them can only stare in disbelief as the youngest continues to hit bull’s eye with his eyes closed, quickly filling up the center with darts. When Donghyuck was down to his last one, Jungwoo tells him to try and hit where Mark had bore a hole in the door. Without missing a beat, Donghyuck flicks his wrist and the last dart slots itself exactly five inches away from the board. 

“Okay I’m out.” Donghyuck doesn’t have to look at any of them to know that they’re all gaping, except maybe Jungwoo because he seemed to know what he was doing. He stalks back into his room without so much as a goodbye, leaving the four in the living room. 

“What the hell was that?” 

“I have no fucking clue,” says Mark, still staring at the door where Donghyuck just disappeared. 

“Gentlemen.” Jungwoo smiles to himself. “You were just in the presence of a god.” 

5.

Mark barges into Jungwoo’s room as a sort of last resort. 

He’s been through every single one of the hyungs’s rooms to ask for help but they all either laughed at him and returned back to what they were doing, or just plain shooed him away. 

He half expects Jungwoo to do the same, so he double takes when the door swings open to reveal the blond already waiting for him. He’s leaning leisurely on his expensive ergonomic chair with an ominous smile, and Mark feels like an intern about to get fired for uploading a music video late. 

“Took you long enough,” says Jungwoo as he swivels towards Mark, closing the door shut with his toes. 

“You knew I was coming?” Mark squawks, shifting his feet on the soft rug underneath him. 

“Of course, who do you take me for?” Jungwoo raises an eyebrow at him. “Wait, don’t answer that. I forget you’re Mark Lee.” 

It’s Mark’s turn to raise an accusing eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Jungwoo just ignores him with a snicker and motions for Mark to sit on the bed. Mark finds himself followingly mindlessly, sitting himself down the cushions with a bounce. 

“So, is Haechan still ignoring you?” 

He doesn’t know how Jungwoo managed to know exactly where to hit, but it doesn’t even matter because he’s right. Ever since the dart incident, Donghyuck has been on edge and snapping at anyone who dares to even breathe too loudly for his liking. 

Mark supposes he’d be pissed at anyone who woke him up on his only rest day, too. But when he tried to apologize, Donghyuck just threw him out of the room and told him to get lost until he figured it out. What exactly, he has no idea. That’s why he’s here in Jungwoo’s room in the first place. 

“You could say that.” Mark’s brows furrow with a frown. “I’m not really sure why he’s upset. I tried to apologize, but for some reason that just pissed him off even more.” 

Jungwoo purses his lips to stop himself from snorting at Mark, who genuinely looks confused and upset. He has to admit this whole guessing game was fun in the beginning, but it’s been months and it’s starting to get really tiring to see them go around in circles. Jungwoo tried to expedite things whenever he can, but he draws the line at an actual intervention until any one of them comes up to him directly for help. 

“Oof, that’s rough buddy.” He hears Mark mutter under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like ‘no shit’. “Luckily for you I know something that can help.”

Mark looks up to him, eyes zeroing on the lighter Jungwoo has somehow procured from nowhere. “What is it?” 

“It’s always good to consult the fires when you’re in a pinch.” Jungwoo smiles as he swivels to the window where a tall white candle sits. “The gods are all knowing and if you ask really nicely, they’ll help.” 

It’s a load of barnacles, Mark thinks. But when Jungwoo lights up the wick, he finds himself leaning closer to the fire anyways. Jungwoo stares at the flames intently, his soft features hardened in a seriousness he’s never seen from the older before. Mark suddenly feels nervous. 

“It looks serious, Markie.” Jungwoo says, clicking his tongue and Mark feels himself break out into cold sweat. 

“What does it say?” 

“I don’t know how to break it to you, but..” Jungwoo trails off, biting his lip in a show of nervousness. “You have the serious case of the himbo.”

Mark groans, his eyes threatening to roll to the back of his head at Jungwoo’s antics. For a second there he really thought the older was onto something, but he should have really expected nothing useful to come out of this considering he was talking to Jungwoo. 

“I’m not lying!” Jungwoo says, voice rising in defense. “Aphrodite might have blessed you with looks, but they forgot to stuff your pretty head with a brain. Did you ever read Percy Jackson?” 

“No, what the fuck?” Mark hisses. He doesn’t know how all of this Greek talk is useful to his pressing problem. “Why would I read that?” 

“How old were you again when you left Canada?” 

“I dunno, twelve?” 

“Then you were definitely old enough.” Jungwoo clicked his tongue again. “Were you a slow learner, by any chance?”

“What’s your point?” Mark runs his hands through his hair as he gets up from the bed “I didn’t come here to be insulted.” 

Jungwoo only swivels his chair around in response, and Mark thinks to just leave and sleep this problem away until tomorrow. But before he gets to the door, Jungwoo plucks out an old dusty paperback from the shelf behind him and throws it in his direction. 

“My point.” Jungwoo stares pointedly at him when Mark finally has the book in his hands. “Is that Haechan’s been busting his ass to tell you something very important about himself for the past year, but you’re making it very difficult.” 

“What—”

Jungwoo stands from his swivel chair for the first time that night, interrupting Mark by pushing him out of the room. “Get cultured, Mark.” And with that Jungwoo is slamming the door in his face. 

+1

Mark knocks on Donghyuck’s door twice, before slipping in without waiting for a response. The lights are shut but the blaze of the late afternoon sun filters through the windows, illuminating the room in a soft glow. 

It’s golden hour, and Donghyuck is splayed across his bed watching the sun set in silence. 

Mark stands by the door, gazing at the younger’s form. His limbs fall on the soft duvet like grace, and the sun kisses his skin in an explosion of twinkling lights. Donghyuck lies there effortlessly in his element, and with the truth so glaring in front of him Mark wonders how dense he had to be to not see this coming. 

Donghyuck lifts his head to look at him, and his gaze is so intense when their eyes lock that Mark has to remind himself to breathe. When air fills his lungs again, Donghyuck is already turning back to face the window. 

It’s not a warm welcome, but neither was it a rejection. So Mark braces himself before carefully making his way to the bed. He lies on his side with his head propped up on one hand, mimicking Donghyuck’s stance. When the younger doesn’t say anything after a while, Mark speaks. 

“I’m sorry.” 

For a second there is nothing and Mark considers opening his mouth again, but a sigh escapes Donghyuck and he turns around to face Mark. It’s only been a week since he got to see the younger this close, but it feels like lifetimes ago. Mark wants to touch his face, but to his surprise Donghyuck reaches out to pull him closer first. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” Donghyuck says, voice a little muffled from pressing himself against Mark’s chest. Mark’s arm automatically wraps itself around Donghyuck. “I was being really dramatic.” 

“No you weren’t,” says Mark. “In fact, you were actually really obvious about it. But I didn’t know what I was looking for. I didn’t even know who Apollo was.”

He thinks back to when Donghyuck told him the first time and the memory makes Mark want to bury himself six feet under in shame. 

Donghyuck’s pout turns into a small giggle, “Don’t let him hear you say that or you might break a leg.” 

“Then I guess we just have to make a sacrifice then. What was it? 12 cows?” 

“Maybe double if he finds out you’re my boyfriend.” Mark looks down to see Donghyuck sporting a pretty blush. He wraps his arms tighter around the younger. 

“Mark?” Donghyuck’s voice calls out after a beat of silence. Mark hums in acknowledgement. 

“We’re still...good, right?” 

“What?” Mark's chest tightens at how nervous Donghyuck looks, biting at his lip. “Of course, Hyuck. It was never a question. You could’ve been a sea nymph and I wouldn’t have cared. You’re still my Donghyuck and nothing’s going to change that.” 

“Sea nymphs…” Donghyuck mutters, eyes downcast. “You did your research.” 

It’s his sharp tongue, but Mark knows he’s secretly relieved. Under him, the tension in Donghyuck’s shoulders disappear along with the remaining daylight as he lets out a sigh. It leaves Mark with no other choice but to hoist the younger up so that they’re eye to eye, and then he’s kissing him. 

Soft and slow, gentle like the crashing of waves. Like this, Mark drinks worship straight from Donghyuck’s lips and light floods all of his veins until a divine truth reveals itself to him in the afterglow. 

Tonight, the sun will not set. It will fall. 

**Author's Note:**

> [primordial screeching]
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/whitenoisce)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whitenoisce)


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